God's Help in Discouragement

When we last left Elijah, he was at the height of spiritual victory and triumph. He had been mightily used by God to demonstrate to all the children of Israel gathered there that day on Mt. Carmel, that God of Israel was the only true God. What acts of power were ordained by God to be done that day, through the instrumentality of Elijah! But here in these verses we find that even though Elijah had done these great things for Israel and for the Lord, that he fell into a deep discouragement. It was such a great discouragement that he prayed that God would take his life. In order to understand this, I want us to look at 3 statements which will show us why Elijah fell into this discouragement. 1st of all – The statement of Jezebel that brought about Elijah's discouragement. 2nd – The statement of Elijah that compounded his discouragement. And 3rd – The statement of the angel which ministered encouragement to Elijah. In thinking about these statements, let us consider how we might prevent discouragement from coming to ourselves, and how we might minister encouragement, to other believers around us, who need it.